Know Your Creative ‘Why’

Many of us are starting the new year with resolutions. It makes me happy that a few of us are making creativity a priority by starting a project or some sort of creative practice in our lives.

As someone who teaches art and creativity courses, I encourage and guide my students in their journeys and projects. At the start of each new endeavour, I ask them to consider a few things and ask a couple of very important questions that can help impact the outcome of their venture, the most important of which I ask you now…

Why do you want to be more creative?

Sometimes change is difficult. Knowing your reasons and motivations will make the path towards change and growth a little bit easier.

If you don’t know your reasons, take a few minutes to find out via some self reflection on the reasons why you think creativity is important to you and why you wish to develop it: Perhaps there Is there a problem you want to solve. Or maybe you want to do better in your job or career. Want to generate more and better ideas? Maybe you are feeling stuck in other areas of your life. Or are you just bored and want to spice things up?

Once you know what your motivation is, I ask you to go deeper. Find out if your reasons truly align with your values as a person. If you find that you are undertaking change because your parents, spouse or society expects you to, rather than because the project is important to you and what you value, it will be much more difficult to keep it going (we all know that keeping resolutions going can be tough).

If you are starting a creative writing project and you value diversity can you make your characters indigenous or black? If you value sustainability and the environment, there is a way to create while keeping that in mind. If you value humour, wellness, freedom, ladybugs, hotdogs and French fries, whatever it might be, can you reflect that somehow in your creations?

If your chosen endeavour aligns with your values, you’ll have more strength to keep going when the going gets tough. In addition, when you do establish that new creative habit or finish that creative project that aligns with who you truly are as a person, it’s all the more satisfying when you succeed.

* I happen to value sustainability and the environment. Read about how I incorporate this value into my art practice here.